The Hellraiser Vs. Halloween Film We Never Got To See
Crossovers have long been a big part of the horror genre. Imaginary screen fantasies about Frankenstein and the Wolf Man slugging it out eventually produced real Universal movie monster parties in the 1940s like "House of Frankenstein," a tradition that carried through the "Godzilla" franchise and into stuff like "Freddy vs. Jason" in 2003 and "Alien vs. Predator" the following year.
Off the screen, where concerns about production budgets and character rights are much more flexible, monsters and heroes from across all genres have a habit of running into each other in prose stories and comic books. For example, the 2016 novel "Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell" is about an unlikely lost case of the great detective, who comes across the Lament Configuration, better known as the puzzle box from "Hellraiser."
Shortly after that book was published, the Clive Barker Podcast website published a look back at another proposed "Hellraiser" crossover that never made it to the screen or to the page. It would have been a "Hellraiser vs. Halloween" movie, or perhaps more accurately, a "Pinhead vs. Michael Myers" movie. And even though it never made it into pre-production, it's still a fascinating "what-if" crossover scenario to think about.
The proposed Pinhead/Michael Myers crossover was pitched to Dimension Films by filmmaker Dave Parker
The story first came out in 2003, when horror filmmaker Dave Parker spoke to Creature Corner (via Clive Barker Podcast) about his idea for a "Hellraiser vs. Halloween" crossover movie. As he put it, it was a matter of serendipity that at the time that horror crossovers were getting pretty popular on the big screen, Dimension Films owned the rights to both the "Halloween" and "Hellraiser" franchises. Using that as a starting point, Parker put together a pitch for the studio:
"It was a no-brainer to see that Dimension had both the Halloween and Hellraiser franchises, so I put together a trailer using footage from the Halloween movies, including Halloween 6 which was just getting ready to come out, and the Hellraiser movies 1 thru 4," Parker said. And he even came up with a catchy title: "I did new narration [for the trailer] and I called the idea 'Helloween' — I know not the most groundbreaking idea and will probably induce many groans."
Obviously, the movie never happened, and with "Halloween" and "Hellraiser" both spawning new versions in recent years (and Dimension Films no longer owning the "Halloween" rights), this idea is unlikely to reach the screen anytime soon. But Parker did share more in a separate interview with Fangoria (not online on their site but also available via The Clive Barker Podcast) about the project, and it's even more tantalizing for fans of the two franchises.
Parker came up with a plausible explanation for why Michael Myers can't be killed, and how he ends up in conflict with Pinhead
"It explained certain things about Michael Myers and why he is what he is, and that led to opening the doors for Pinhead to come in. My thing was, how come Michael Myers could never die?" remembered Dave Parker.
Parker's concept involved a previously unseen incident in Michael Myers' backstory. He opens the Lament Configuration and is possessed by the Lord of the Dead, "Sam Hain" (an allusion to the references to the occult Celtic festival Samhain seen in "Halloween III: Season of the Witch"), who uses his earthly body to commit the murder and mayhem we know from the "Halloween" series. But when a group of concerned citizens attempts to tear down the old Myers house, they find the puzzle box hidden in the walls and open it, allowing Pinhead to once again escape into our realm. Then, of course, Pinhead and Michael Myers/Sam Hain become locked in a battle that rages across Haddonfield and eventually Hell itself.
But Parker's most inspired creative choice was probably this: "I had a computer guy do a final piece, which was the skull pumpkin from 'Halloween II' moving in and then Pinhead's pins emerge out of it," he said.
"Hellraiser" pins coming out of a "Halloween" jack-o-lantern clearly spells a box office bonanza, but Parker's proposal was rejected. Dimension Films were still interested in the basic crossover idea for some time, and they even sought the input of series creators Clive Barker and John Carpenter. There were rumors of an animated version, but nothing came of them either.
Now, a "Hellraiser vs Halloween" movie is strictly the stuff of nightmares. But as nightmares go, they're pretty interesting.